Bovine mastitis is one of the most common diseases in dairy cattle. Mastitis occurs when the udder becomes inflamed. Inflammation may be caused by many types of injury including infectious agents and their toxins, physical trauma or chemical irritants. Many microorganisms or bacteria have been identified as causing mastitis, but it is believed that serious cases of mastitis are in most instances caused by either of following pathogens, i.e. Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Streptococcus uberis and E. coli. 
The most common mastitis pathogens are found either in the udder (contagious pathogens) or the cow's surroundings (environmental pathogens). Contagious pathogens, such as Streptococcus agalactiae and Staphylococcus aureus, primarily colonize host tissue sites such as mammary glands, teat canals, and teat skin lesions and are generally spread from infected udders to healthy udders during the milking process. This can include through contaminated teatcup liners, milker's hands, paper or cloth towels used to wash or dry more than one cow, and possibly flies. Environmental pathogens, such as streptococci, enterococci, and coliform organisms, are commonly present within the cow's surroundings from sources such as cow feces, soil, plant material, bedding, or water; and infect by casual opportunistic contact with an animal. In all cases of mastitis, whatever the causal microorganism, the route of transmission of the pathogen into the udder is through the teat orifice and teat canal.
Mastitis causes compositional changes in milk, including an increase in somatic cell count (SCC). Milk from normal (uninfected) cows generally contain below 200,000 somatic cells/ml. An elevation in SCC, above 300,000 somatic cells/ml is abnormal and is an indication of inflammation of the udder. The types of somatic cells present in the milk change to mostly white blood cells, which add many proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes to milk. In addition, more blood serum leaks into the milk than usual. Dairy product quality defects resulting from mastitis are due to enzymatic breakdown of milk protein and fat. Casein, the major milk protein of high nutritional quality, declines and lower quality whey proteins increase which adversely impacts dairy product quality, such as cheese yield, flavor and quality. Protein breakdown in the milk can occur in milk from cows with clinical or subclinical mastitis due to the presence of proteolytic enzymes. Plasmin increases proteolytic activity more than 2-fold during mastitis. Plasmin and enzymes derived from somatic cells can cause damage to casein in the udder before milk removal. Deterioration of the milk protein may also continue during processing and storage of milk from infected cows. Other compositional changes in the milk include a decrease in potassium and calcium levels.
Mastitis costs the US dairy industry about 1.7-2 billion dollars annually or 11% of the total US milk production. The cost includes reduced milk production, discarded milk, replacement cows, medication, labor, and veterinary services. Currently, acute mastitis is treated with antibiotics, antiinflammatories and oxytocin. The treatments however are often consuming (sometimes several successive intramammary applications), expensive, and not fully efficacious. As such, there is a need for a treatment option and pharmaceutical composition which improves the efficacy of the current standard or provides acceptable efficacy with additional positive assets, for example, reduced milk withdrawal, reduced duration of treatment, and/or less costly treatment option.